There are some turns where I will spin

In the first week of October, I did something I'd been waiting to do the whole two and a bit years I've been learning to play the fiddle. I went to a week-long fiddle camp.

I was a very raw beginner when the inaugural Stringmania was held in 2016. I'm not sure I'd even heard about it in time to register but I wouldn't have had the guts to do it at that point anyway. I did, however, time a trip to Melbourne to be able to go to a couple of concerts by the tutors.



Last year, the timing was a bit too close on the heels of our UK trip to take more time off work. To be honest I guess I also still really didn't feel ready yet for a full week of playing and cramming new tunes into my brain/fingers.



But I was determined to go this year and I registered and paid my deposit nice and early. As the time approached I got really anxious about it. Irrationally so. My inner voice was telling me that everyone there would be accomplished musicians, all the other campers would be friends already and clique-y. Also, I would sound bad and piss everyone off, would not be able to keep up, and on top of that, I would be overwhelmed by being with people all the time (including sleeping in a dorm/cabin).


Tutors Alasdair Fraser, Natalie Haas, Nicholas Ng and Jingjing Lu

My rational side did think it would probably be ok. But the truth is, it turned out to be pretty much everything I could have hoped. The atmosphere was warm and inclusive. I struggled to keep up sometimes (and did sound bad sometimes) but I quickly found some comrades who were in the same boat, and we were able to get together outside of class and try to help each other with some super-slow sessions.

All the classes focus on learning by ear - we only received the sheet music some time after camp - and you place yourself in a level based on how fast you like to learn by ear. I enjoyed the challenge, but I wished I was more experienced and quicker to grasp the tunes. This is as much about my physical ability to play my instrument as it is my ability to remember a tune (this is where singing it first helps, enormously).

I'm so glad that I can read music, thanks to all the music lessons I had on piano. With my lovely regular teacher I learn some tunes by ear and some with the 'dots'. I'd already worked out that although I can play it through sooner with the music, if I do the hard work to learn a tune by ear (or even mostly by ear, fixing up a few notes later) I will learn it by heart much sooner and retain it better.

Which is all well and good, but for me it's a big ask to internalise several new tunes in six days, in time for the concert at the end of camp. (With or without sheet music). It was impressive to see lots of people who can do this fairly effortlessly. When it came to the rehearsal/arrangement session on the day of the concert, I quickly realised that even some of the tunes I had more-or-less learned were going to be played way too fast for me. So then I found myself at the last minute trying to listen in to the cellos and learn a couple of bassline phrases to use instead.


Lucy Wise and Holly Downes


When it comes to the music and musicians that I love, I've always been on the outside looking in. And that's pretty much still the case, but the camp experience broke down those barriers to some extent. I saw and heard incredible musicians doing cool things, sure, but also people who are more like me. People who maybe haven't been playing all their life. I feel like I got to see a bit of the magic where a lot of elements come together into something wonderful - sometimes quite quickly and without too much trialing or planning. I have to acknowledge the very skilled tutors and director did do some planning behind the scenes. But even so, many of the tutors come in relatively cold, and some of them may have never played with the others previously. I'm so impressed by their skill and openness, coming in to a group of 100+ people and teaching them at all levels, on a wide range of instruments, and pulling it all together into a credible performance.


View from the back of the stage, rehearsal before the concert.

The other day I caught up with a friend from camp and we talked about attitudes to music-making. I said I felt I was still personally a bit stuck in the mindset that (theoretically, as I am not performing in any capacity!) I would need to practice a piece a lot, to get it to being performable. She likened this to a classical way of thinking, and we talked about the idea of community music which is primarily about the *experience* of playing together. Of course this is exactly what session music is and what the camp was really about. I still feel though that my lack of physical skill in playing my instrument is quite a barrier. It's a slow process but I have to stop at times and notice that it is improving.

I can't begin to analyse everything I learned or took in at camp - some things I probably haven't even acknowledged. I know I want to do it again.


Hanging out at the back of the stage and contemplating my chances of hitting one note in four.